


Runaway

by aliaoftwoworlds



Series: Bitter Retribution [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author is Bitter, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Not Steve Friendly, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), not team Cap friendly, not wanda maximoff friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 15:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14047341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliaoftwoworlds/pseuds/aliaoftwoworlds
Summary: The Ex-Avengers are on the run and come across a familiar face, but discover that “old friends” may not return the sentiment.





	Runaway

**Author's Note:**

> This story includes all of Team Cap (except Natasha) in at least brief speaking roles, but I only tagged Steve and Wanda because Steve does most of the talking and Wanda is talked about. I’m trying not to overtag characters, because I know how annoying I find it when I’m looking through a character tag and there’s 593 stories that they’re tagged in in which they say maybe ten words and aren’t featured in any important role. Though at the same time, if you’re trying to avoid a character, it’s impossible if they’re not tagged… too many decisions!

After only a couple weeks in Wakanda, Steve and his team ended up leaving. There was just too much hostility towards them all, from every direction. Though the King had offered them sanctuary, he rarely came by the area where they were staying, and he never responded to Steve’s requests to meet with him—assuming the requests made it there at all. The Dora Milaje, his personal guard, looked down their noses at Steve and his friends at every opportunity, treated them like trespassers that they barely tolerated, and ignored their requests as well. The King’s younger sister was just outright insulting to them.

The others had been talking for days about just leaving and taking their chances elsewhere. The only thing stopping Steve had been Bucky. Bucky had gone back into cryo at his own request, T’Challa’s people didn’t seem to have any idea what to do about his triggers, and Steve didn’t want to leave him behind. But whatever his attitude toward Steve and his team, T’Challa was an honorable man who had given his word that he would protect Bucky, and eventually, Steve gave in to the others’ desires. He left Bucky a burner phone to contact him with if he was woken up while Steve was still away, and carried its twin with him—the second such phone he now carried with him.

And so they left, and struck out on their own. They were well aware that they were fugitives, and even after two weeks, the fervor hadn’t died down, and their faces were still well known. They had to be exceedingly careful about when they traveled, who they spoke to, and what they asked for. Sam did a lot of the talking, being slightly less well known by sight than Steve, Clint, or Wanda. Scott stuck with them as well, but mostly stayed to the background. He was fairly withdrawn, just talking about how he missed his daughter and rarely contributing to the group’s ideas or plans. Steve sometimes got the feeling he was regretting having fought with them, but, well, he’d joined Steve willingly, knowing what was at stake. It was too late to go back on it now.

Steve missed Natasha; he’d seen some things about Tony and what remained of the Avengers on the news before they’d left Wakanda, and Natasha hadn’t been anywhere in sight. He knew she’d turned her back on Tony when she let Steve and Bucky go at the airport, so maybe she’d left to protect herself from the consequences of going against the Accords, or maybe Tony had kicked her out. He’d like to think that Tony wouldn’t be that petty, that he could see that Natasha had been doing the right thing, but after how he’d reacted in Siberia, Steve had to admit he wasn’t sure what lengths Tony would go to. 

It was just a shame Natasha wasn’t with them now. Her resourcefulness, planning skills, and spy abilities would have been a great help for them on the run. Clint was certainly well trained as a spy, but his specialty had been long-distance reconnaissance, not information extraction, disguise, or manipulation.

A few times, they came heart-stoppingly close to being caught in places they shouldn’t have been or seen by someone who would certainly get them into trouble. Once or twice, Steve was absolutely sure they’d be in serious trouble, only for whatever witnesses were nearby to suddenly turn and become involved in other things, utterly ignoring Steve and his group.

Steve tried not to dwell on it. He had no proof, technically, but he was fairly certain what was happening. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with Wanda using her powers on random civilians like that, but he didn’t have it in him to confront her about it, either. Was he supposed to chastise her? She’d been getting them out of potentially dangerous situations, keeping them safe and free. And no one had been hurt. As soon as they left the area, those people went back to their regular lives, none the wiser. So he let it go, but renewed his efforts to find a more permanent solution each time. That couldn’t keep happening.

They had traveled all the way to the main Asian continent from the Wakandan border in just under two weeks. They were heading vaguely east across the world, having agreed that while they might not blend in as easily somewhere like Vietnam or Thailand as in Europe, the eastern countries were less involved in the entire Accords argument and people might be less likely to be on the lookout for them or try to get involved in their business.

They’d had to take a fairly circuitous route through the Middle East; it was difficult enough for non-fugitives to travel quietly through many of the surrounding countries, much less for them. Even so, they had to travel through some pretty rough areas, places that had Steve shaking his head to see. This was why the restrictive Accords were a problem. These were the kinds of places they needed to be helping; not hanging back in America, only taking care of problems that made them look good.

They were near the eastern border of Tajikistan and preparing to cross into China when Sam came back to their temporary hideout one day, reporting that he’d found someone who claimed he could help them. Sam was always duly cautious when he went out and wasn’t the type to fall for a con, but still worried that this could be some sort of trap. Carefully, they went the next day to meet them.

“Them” turned out to be a wizened, unassuming old man at the front of a dingy store, who beckoned them into the back. Steve knew that Clint and Sam both had hands on weapons as they entered the back room. Scott looked like he didn’t want to be there at all, but also didn’t want to argue. Wanda was tense, fists clenched at her sides.

The back room looked like something out of a movie; several rough-looking men sitting around folding tables, playing cards or reading newspapers, every one of them smoking. They looked up at Steve and his team’s entry, some looking intrigued, others just going back to what they were doing.

One man stood up and approached the group. He stopped in front of Steve, looking him up and down, and then his eyes slid over the others briefly. “Ah, yes. A lot of work to do,” he said, thickly accented.

Steve tilted his head, warily regarding the man. “Work?”

“To disappear, yes? You are trouble. Looking to hide.”

“Yes,” Steve said cautiously, “can you help with that?”

The man chuckled. “I take you to vanish, like your friend.”

Steve’s brows furrowed, wondering exactly what “friend” the man was talking about, but before he could ask, the man turned and spoke to one of the others in another language. They held a short conversation, sometimes looking back at Steve’s group, and then the other got up and left out a back door.

The first man beckoned to them as he moved toward the back of the room. “Come, we show you where to go for disappearing. You help us and we help you.”

The next several hours found Steve and his team poring over maps and documentation, as the two men assisting them helped them to create new identities and a strategy for the future. They now had several letters and other documents that should help facilitate their movements, so long as they followed the path laid out. Their maps had them jumping through small, out of the way towns along the southern Chinese border and then down into central India.

The plan was to use the men’s network of connections to safely travel long stretches where they otherwise might encounter resistance, and move quietly on their own through safer areas. They would switch identification several times along the way, taking and leaving a few prearranged small jobs for people, helping along the way with some work in exchange for passage through towns and new identities. Eventually, they would end up in one of many relatively isolated, busy villages that wouldn’t question their presence as long as they stayed quiet. From there, it would be their responsibility to successfully integrate and stay out of trouble.

Disappearing completely would be difficult—for one, the men suggested that they split up near the end of the journey in order to best vanish from the public eye, but Steve could tell immediately from the faces of the others that that wouldn’t be happening—but they would worry about that when they got there. They had a plan, and people who were willing to help them, and Steve didn’t want to risk it. So, as soon as they had everything in place, they set out.

It was a long, harrowing journey. Having a plan made Steve feel good, but it was the most stressed he’d been since leaving Wakanda. The others were depending on him, and missing one step in the plan could ruin the entire thing. The men who’d helped them in Tajikistan had made it clear that the middlemen in the journey would not wait for them indefinitely. If they didn’t show up as planned, or didn’t come with the expected deliveries or documents, Steve’s team would be left to their own devices.

They managed. With only a few minor slips, misunderstandings, and arguments along the way, they made it to the branch point in India where their guides had suggested they split. The split was an elephant in the room, part of the plan that they’d ignored so far because they knew it wasn’t going to happen, but they weren’t sure exactly where to go from there. It was true that they were sure to attract more attention than necessary by sticking together in a group, but… well, they’d gone this far together. They weren’t about to split up now.

They still had one more stop on the way, switching identification one last time and delivering supplies to some kind of combination medical and refuge center. The delivery went as usual, Steve busy thinking about the future of the group and what they were planning to do now that they were reaching the end of their planned journey as he dropped off his boxes, head ducked to help avoid drawing attention to himself. The beard he’d stopped shaving since leaving Wakanda helped with that. But just as he was taking their newest and last set of forms from the woman who’d received their boxes of supplies, his attention was caught by a familiar face across the room.

He was frozen in place, staring across the room and trying to decide whether he’d really seen it or not, when Wanda’s hand landed on his arm. “Steve?” she said quietly, looking concerned. “What is it?”

He watched the man straighten across the large open room and turn to head into the back, and got a full look at Bruce Banner. A grin was spreading across his face as he watched Bruce disappear down a hallway toward the back.

“An old friend,” he told Wanda, smiling down at her. “Guys,” he said, gesturing to Sam, Scott, and Clint. They looked confused, but followed him when he weaved through groups of people and headed down the hallway where he’d seen Bruce go.

It would be good to see a friendly face, for the first time in years. Bruce had left so abruptly after Ultron, no doubt wracked with guilt over what the Hulk had done in Johannesburg, and for the fact that he’d helped Tony construct Ultron in secret. He’d always had a habit of trying to disappear and stay on his own for a while after things went wrong, rather than facing his problems head on with the support of friends behind him. But Steve supposed it wasn’t easy to make a lot of friends when you were also the Hulk. Banner had always been wary about trusting and depending on the Avengers.

In a way, he was glad Bruce had been gone for the entire Accords fiasco. He knew Bruce didn’t like letting the Hulk out, despite accepting that it was necessary in some circumstances. If he’d been forced to fight at the airport in Germany, the Hulk could have caused a ton of damage, maybe even killed someone, and Bruce wouldn’t have been able to forgive himself, even if it was someone he’d been fighting against. Someone like Tony. Tony and Bruce had been close before Ultron, sharing in a love of science, and Bruce seemed to tolerate Tony’s abrasive personality fairly well, all things considered.

But with Ross at the helm of the Accords and Tony inexplicably handing his leash over to the man, he knew Bruce would have been forced to turn against his friend. He wasn’t entirely sure about Bruce’s history with Ross—the man had always been private about his past and Steve hadn’t wanted to press him for details—but he knew it was bad. Bruce, like Steve and those who’d followed him, would have understood that anything Ross was involved in couldn’t be good.

It might not be realistic to think that Bruce would want to join their group now as they tried to blend in and hide out; after all, clearly Bruce had disappeared himself and was likely to want to stay right where he was. But perhaps he could give them some more advice about the local area, who and where to avoid and how best to get by until they had an established identity there that no one would bother. Either way, it would be nice just to have a conversation with him.

Steve wondered, briefly, if having Natasha with them would be a good thing or not. She and Bruce had had _something_ going on back before Ultron, Steve wasn’t sure what, but it seemed to be good for them. But after Bruce had left, Natasha hadn’t mentioned him much, and Steve was pretty sure they hadn’t contacted each other. Steve had asked, just once, and Natasha had implied that even if Bruce were around, he wouldn’t be happy with her. Steve had thought that she might be exaggerating, that Bruce had been angry at himself and the world after Ultron and might have been taking his frustrations out on her. Surely, with some time away, he would have calmed down. Everyone wanted companionship.

The hallway Bruce had gone down was nearly empty. There were doors lining the walls, each with dirty glass or open holes looking into the rooms inside. Steve glanced briefly into each one as they moved down the hall, looking for Bruce but trying not to grab the attention of any of the rooms’ occupants. Finally, near the end of the hall, Steve caught a glimpse of the back of Bruce’s head through an open doorway.

He gestured to the others. Scott and Wanda took up positions near the doorway to watch for any visitors, and Steve, Sam, and Clint filed into what looked like a large open supply room. Bruce had his back to them, reaching up to take something off a shelf on the back wall, but he must have heard their footsteps, because he said something briefly in the local language without glancing back at all.

Steve cleared his throat. “Bruce.” He stood slightly awkwardly as the man dropped whatever it was he’d been reaching for and whirled to face them, eyes widening almost comically as they landed on the group.

Steve smiled. “It’s good to see you,” he said, stepping forward with the intention of shaking Bruce’s hand, but Bruce wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were roaming over all three of them, fists clenching at his sides, before he looked up at Steve.

Steve was shocked to see the almost wild, unfriendly look in his eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?” Bruce ground out, voice slightly deeper than usual.

Steve held his hands up in a peaceful gesture. “I’m sorry to have startled you, Bruce. I’m sure you weren’t expecting to see us. But we were… in the neighborhood, and when I saw you out there I wanted to come by and say hello. It’s been a long time.” His smile was faltering, seeing that Bruce’s expression wasn’t softening. If anything, he looked angrier than before.

“How the hell did you find me?” he said, pulling in a deep breath through his nose.

It suddenly clicked in Steve’s head, the comment their guide had made about disappearing _like your friend_. The same man must have helped Bruce to this area. “Some people in Tajikistan, they set up a route for us to come here.”

Bruce’s expression darkened and he looked down at the floor for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose. He muttered something that sounded unflattering in another language, then looked back to Steve again. “Get the hell out,” he snapped.

Steve jerked back at the tone. “Hey, we haven’t told anyone you’re here, don’t worry. No one else will find out. We’re not working for anyone, Bruce, we’re on the run now, like you.”

“Like me?” Bruce said, taking a step towards them, and Steve backed up slightly, seeing a bit of green in his eyes. Maybe Bruce realized it, because he closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and stepped back again. “You’re nothing like me,” he said again, slightly calmer. “I came here to be alone, and to help people. You’re the ones who are ‘on the run.’”

Steve frowned at the distinction. “You’d have been too, if you were with us. On the run from Ross.”

Bruce opened his eyes again. “Ross is in prison.”

Steve blinked. “What?”

“Haven’t been keeping up, have you? I saw it even all the way out here. They nailed him two weeks ago, for all kinds of illegal stuff. But what does he have to do with you being on the run? You’re fugitives because you’re criminals, not because of Ross.”

Clint crossed his arms next to him. “Ross was the one trying to keep us in a damn prison.”

Bruce gave him a look. “Yeah, because you’re _criminals_. I saw the pictures of that airport. I saw the reports about Bucharest. Twelve people died. You don’t call that being a criminal?” 

Steve opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, Bruce held up a hand. “You know what, I don’t care. I don’t know why I’m having this conversation. I told you to get the hell out. I like it here, thanks, I don’t need you ruining it for me.”

Steve tried for a tentative smile again. “We thought you might be able to help us with that,” he said. “We’re trying to do the same.”

Bruce snorted and half turned back, picking up the box he’d been reaching for when they’d entered. “Why the hell would I want anything to do with you?” 

Steve frowned. “That’s what friends do for each other.”

Bruce turned to glare at him. “We’re not friends.”

Before Steve could respond to that, Wanda’s voice came from the doorway. “How ungrateful,” she said, coming into the room with Scott next to her. “Hallway’s clear, it’s fine,” she reported to Steve, but Steve’s attention was drawn to Bruce, whose eyes were fixed on Wanda. They were definitely looking green, and there was a tearing sound as the box he was holding was crushed in his hands.

“What the _hell_ is _she_ doing here,” he growled, and now his voice had definitely dropped down a few octaves. Steve backed up another step, putting an arm out to try to push Wanda back behind him.

“She’s on our side, Bruce, she fought with us. She helped us get away from Tony.”

Bruce let out a terrifying laugh, but refocused on Steve, and some of the green receded from his hands and face, which was good. “ _Get away_ from Tony? You’ve got to be kidding me. Because he actually wanted you to take responsibility for your screw-ups?”

“The Accords were going to restrict us,” Steve said, “make us into government puppets, attack dogs who would do what they said. Tony tried to force us all to sign them. We had to fight back.”

That earned him another strangled laugh. “That’s pathetic, Steve. Really. That’s—that’s delusional. Even when I left, the Accords were already in the works. They were about taking responsibility, preventing the kinds of disasters we’d had in the past. You didn’t fight them to be noble. You fought them because you can’t stand not being in charge all the time. You don’t want to face the consequences of what you’ve done. You’re nothing but a coward, Steve, a coward who never understood anything Tony did for you, for all of us. You stepped on him every opportunity you had, you put him down constantly, while you sat there and let him pay for your whole life and deal with all the nasty details you didn’t want to. You had incredible privilege, Steve, and you turned your back on all of it, on the whole world, all because they were asking you to take responsibility for your own mistakes, all while condemning Tony for his.”

Steve felt frustration welling in him at the accusations. “We were trying to protect people. We shouldn’t be punished for that. The situation with Tony was different. He built Ultron, in secret, messing with things he shouldn’t have. He—”

“Tony and _I_ built Ultron, Steve, did you forget that?” Bruce interrupted.

Steve frowned. “I know. That’s why you left.”

Bruce’s fists were clenching again. “Did you seriously think I left because of that? Why? Because an alien artifact took over the _peacekeeping program_ we had _just started_ and turned it into an evil robot? What happened to Ultron wasn’t our fault, either of us. Tony was trying to protect everyone. What Ultron became wasn’t what he created.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“Are you kidding? I left because of _her_ ,” he pointed at Wanda, still half-hidden behind Steve, “and because of _you_. I left because I had no faith in you anymore, your leadership or your judgment. The way you treated Tony, then you actually attacked him, and then you let HYDRA agents onto the team, including one who messed with all our minds? Who set the Hulk loose in Johannesburg?”

Wanda made an angry noise behind him, but Steve put a hand back on her shoulder. “Wanda changed, Bruce. She made amends. She helped us.”

The green was creeping back up Bruce’s arms and into his face. “ _Made amends_? When? For what? I never heard an apology for what she did to me, and even if I had, what difference would it make? Why don’t you send her over to the families of the people who died in Johannesburg and she can tell them she’s ‘sorry.’ See how much good it does. Or how about all the people who died in Sokovia, because _she_ helped Ultron, up until she realized his ‘end the world’ plan included killing her.”

“Wanda regrets that,” Steve said, over the sound of Wanda’s inarticulate snarl of fury.

Bruce took a step toward Steve, stance threatening. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Clint, Sam, and Scott back away. “She doesn’t regret anything,” Bruce snarled at him, “but I sure as hell do. If I could go back I would, go back and not abandon Tony. That was the worst thing I ever did to him, and if he ever forgives me for it, it’ll be too good of him. Because I didn’t just leave him to deal with the world, I left him to deal with _you_ , the good Captain who put him down for everything he ever did and let a HYDRA agent onto the team because she batted her eyelashes. I’m not surprised you’re a criminal now, it seems to suit the company you keep.”

“Stop calling me HYDRA!” Wanda cried, pushing her way out from behind Steve and moving toward Bruce, red magic swirling at her fingertips. Steve grabbed her shoulders, trying to pull her back, but Bruce was already backing up several steps, green now climbing up to his shoulders, the seams on his shirt starting to stretch just a bit.

“I swear to god, Steve, if you don’t get that witch out of my sight, I’m not going to be able to stop the Hulk. Civilians or not, he’s coming out, and he’ll turn her into nothing but a smear on the pavement. Same with the rest of you. So get the hell out, go, and don’t ever let me see her again, or you’ll all end up dead.”

“Come on, man,” Sam said, pulling on Steve’s elbow. Clint and Scott were backing out of the open doorway, eyes on Bruce, ready to dash if he went past the point of no return. Wanda was still pulling against Steve like she wanted to go after Bruce, but he managed to tug her with him and hand her off to Sam, who pulled her from the room.

As the rest of the group left, Steve lingered in the doorway, watching Bruce close his eyes and take a few deep breaths to calm himself. He was his normal size again, green receding to his fingertips. Steve stood in the doorway, watching him, shocked at the turn of events.

He’d never expected so much hostility from Bruce, towards Wanda or himself. He’d always thought they’d gotten along well, and he was sure Bruce would have sided with him on the Accords issue. He was still stunned by Bruce’s reaction to them, not quite processing it. How could he be blaming Steve and Wanda for all of this, even after all this time?

Bruce’s eyes opened again, to regard him with cold disdain. “I thought I told you to get out of my sight.”

Steve hesitated in the doorway, looking back at the man he’d thought was a friend. “That’s really how you feel,” he said, posture defeated, disappointment lacing his voice.

Bruce’s glare deepened. “I told you, you’re not my friend. Now get out.”

His angry gaze followed Steve as he turned and walked back down the hallway to meet the others, who were waiting for him back in the main room of the building. They were going to have to move on from here without help, figure out what to do now that they were at the end of their planned road and Bruce wanted them far away from him. While it upset Steve to feel like they were running away from Bruce, he certainly didn’t want to cause an incident, and from how Bruce had reacted, Steve didn’t doubt his promise that the Hulk would attack them all if he caught sight of them again.

Clint had Wanda off to one side, hands on her shoulders, apparently trying to calm her down. When Steve approached the group, Scott turned to look at Steve and shook his head. “Dude, I thought you said that guy was an old friend. Didn’t sound very friendly to me. Holy crap.”

Steve just shook his head, still feeling lost. Here was one more friend he’d apparently lost. “I don’t know. I… guess I was wrong.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know that Bruce leaves sometime after AoU for the events of Ragnarok, but I haven’t seen that yet (a shame, I know, I really need to) and I’m not sure exactly when that is, so for this I guess I’m saying he doesn’t leave until a while after CW.
> 
> I don't know a lot about the Hulk's background or anything in marvel, or much about Bruce, which is why this was more focused on what Wanda did to Tony than Bruce. I do want to try to get into Bruce's head in the future and write more about how what Wanda did would have affected him emotionally, but for now, it was mostly focused on Tony since Steve immediately jumped to blaming Tony for the Accords.


End file.
